Nov
17
Are we getting our money’s worth?
Filed Under City Budget, Highlands Guy's Thursday column | 9 Comments
(Los Alamitos, 11/17/11) Once again our Highlands Guy shares his own unique, analytic perspective on an intriguing topic. This time he gives local perspective to data recently gathered by the OC Grand Jury on top city employee compensation. In the three charts that follows, HG correlates pay with city population and size.
Highlands Guy pesents the data, then leaves the interpretation to you. Read on.
Thanks, H G, for collecting the data and putting it into the interesting charts below!
(By Highlands Guy:) In 2010 the Orange County Grand Jury was empowered to examine several aspects of compensation in County cities. The primary impetus for the study grew out of citizen concerns and recent allegations of gross
Oct
20
Potential?
Filed Under 2011 Issues, City Budget, Highlands Guy's Thursday column, Inspiration | 13 Comments
(Los Alamitos, 10/20/2011) by Highlands Guy:
Is Los Alamitos a good place to live? Well, I guess that depends on a number of variables. Income, employment, health, family relationships, all play important roles in the answer.
But all else being equal, I’d have to say the answer is Read more
Sep
8
Highlands Guy: Financially Speaking
Filed Under City Budget, Highlands Guy's Thursday column | Leave a Comment
(Los Alamitos, 9/8/2011)by Highlands Guy:
I would like to thank the city manager for finally posting the most recent (Fiscal Year 2011-12 Budget) city financial data. I find that one cannot make a complete review of “how we are doing as a city” without it. It is tedious reading and some parts are obviously more important than others, but it does contribute to the complete picture.
The budget is not an opinion, it is not based on a political belief, it is not dependent on someone’s speaking ability, it is a primary source of the state of the city.
Surprisingly, in these horrible Read more
Sep
2
Coyote Creek Park, Pool Heater, Water bill increase on Tuesday, 9/6 Council agenda
Filed Under City Budget, City Council Meetings, Parks and Recreation | 5 Comments
(Los Alamitos, 9/2/2011) Our City Council has a relatively light agenda for their first regular meeting of September, but it includes several items of interest:
*A consent calendar item to spend roughly $16,700 to replace a seven year old heater in the Community Pool at the Base, even though the lowest qualified bid was Read more
Aug
18
A Quick Review Of The City Ledger
Filed Under City Budget, Highlands Guy's Thursday column | Leave a Comment
(Los Alamitos, 8/8/2011) by Highlands Guy:
I understand that the city budget process for this fiscal year is complete. And although I did watch the budget proceedings via TV3, I thought I would take a closer look at the numbers and offer a bit of personal interpretation.
The numbers reflect data from the City of Los Alamitos FY 2010-11 Annual Operating Budget and Capital Improvement Program. (Unfortunately, the budget for the new Fiscal Year, which started on July 1, 2012, is not yet up on the city’s site, so this is essentially a comparison of last year’s budget with the year before. The city, like the state, budgets from July through June.)
One of my disclaimers is that I do not have any comparative information from a demographically similar city. But I maintain that we can glean some meaning from the raw data, even in a vacuum, as it were.
So here’s the breakdown by major categories:
While the City Council budget was slightly lower than 2009-10 by $6,000.00, the salaries and benefits were essentially the same, reflecting no change in our Council Members pay. The biggest change, year over year, was the $5,000.00 spent on the 50th Anniversary Celebration, which was expended during the 2009-10 yeasr. Travel, meetings, and employee service awards were all up over the previous FY.
The City Manager/City Clerk figures seemed to take a dramatic Read more
Jul
5
Post 4th of July Los Al food & trash trucks
Filed Under City Budget, Community News, News you can use | Leave a Comment
(7/5/2011, Los Alamitos)This week our Thursday night food truck confab at the U.S. Bank lot ( Katella & Pine) has 10 trucks scheduled while the Tuesday night one off Winner’s Circle south of HockeyTron across from Costco lists 7 (details below)
In other Los Al trucking news, trash pickup gets pushed back a week due to yesterday’s holiday. For our single family neighborhoods, that moves trash pickup back to Friday, so you can wait until Thursday night to put out your trash containers. (I believe Rossmoor is also pushed back one day this week.)
Street sweeping will Read more
Jul
4
Tuesday, 7/5 City Council Agenda includes Medical Center sponsored pool shade
Filed Under 2011 Issues, City Budget, City Council Meetings, Parks and Recreation | Leave a Comment
With our Council Members busy celebrating the 4th today, the Council meeting was pushed back to Tuesday, 7/5. Pictured: Council Member Poe at the Suburbia Parade
(Los Alamitos,7/4/2011) The 4th of July pushed our City Council’s first meeting of the 2011 – 2012 Fiscal Year back to Tuesday, July 5, and it also seems to have kept the agenda fairly light.
One interesting item that caught my eye is an ongoing effort to provide Read more
Jun
20
Your reporting & comments on tonight’s Council meeting, 6/20/11
Filed Under City Budget, City Council Meetings | 32 Comments
(Los Alamitos, 6/20/11) Once again, it’s your time to report what you saw & share your perspective and comments on tonight’s 7 p.m. Los Alamitos City Council Meeting.
Whether you were there in person, watching on TV, or responding to what you read in the Register, OCNews, or the Patch, tell us what you saw or read & your take on it.
The presentation and discussion of the 2011-12 budget should be interesting, as well as discussion regarding the two Council Members who will serve on the ad hoc committee on the possible annexation Read more
Jun
20
Explanations of Los Al’s almost $2 million deficit
Filed Under 2010 Issues, City Budget, City Council Meetings | 3 Comments
(Los Alamitos, updated Monday, 6/20/2011) Last night when I finally had a chance to quickly glance through the budget that Los Alamitos’ City Council will hold a public hearing on tonight I was surprised to discover an apparent deficit of roughly $1,874,000!
Sensing that I was missing some explanations, I shot an e-mail to our City Manager, Jeff Stewart. This morning Mr. Stewart was kind enough to give me a call with Finance Director Anita Agramonte also on the line and help me get a better understanding of exactly what’s going on.
First, my concerns:
As I worked my way through the brief budget attachment to today’s City Council Agenda, I was surprised to see no
Jun
16
Budget hearing, annexation subcommittee, LosAlTV on Monday City Council Agenda
Filed Under 2011 Issues, City Budget, City Council Meetings, Rossmoor | Leave a Comment
(6/16/2011)The agenda for the Monday, June 20 7 p.m. Los Alamitos City Council meeting is now up, and it includes a public hearing on the 2011-12 F.Y. city budget plus discussion of alternatives for production of the public access portion of LosAl TV3 along with the appointment of a subcommittee to discuss and make recommendations to the Council regarding potential issues relating to the possible annexation of the southwest corner of Los Alamitos Blvd and Katella (Arco to Carwash to Lutheran Church).
Click here for the agenda with staff reports and documents following.
I haven’t made it through the staff reports, but put the link and this brief summary up tonight for our interested readers to review and report or comment on.
Please post your thoughts and Read more
Jun
5
Monday’s 2 Council Meetings: General Plan mod, stoplight synch, peddler rules, budget
Filed Under 2011 Issues, City Budget, City Council Meetings | Leave a Comment
(Los Alamitos, 6/3/2011) The Agendas for our Los Alamitos City Council’s two Monday, June 6, 2011 meetings includes several interesting items.
5 p.m. Special Budget Meeting
This is the last scheduled Special Meeting on the budget. The staff report for the meeting targets 9 areas for discussion:
- Laurel Park Debt Service – Possible Refinancing
- GASB 45 – Other Post Employment Benefit (OPEB) Financing
- Revised Seven Year Capital Improvement Plan
- Capital Project Funds – Elimination/lncorporation Read more
May
26
Undue Influence?
Filed Under City Budget, City Council, Highlands Guy's Thursday column | 30 Comments
(Los Alamitos, 5/26/2011, by Highlands Guy) Dave here. It looks like our Highlands Guy may be opening a can of worms here. Maybe three. Please tell him what you think!
So, how is it that no one in the last 30 years has noticed that there are certain elected and paid city personnel who seem to have had undue influence on tax monies supporting projects that should be outside of the city’s sphere of influence?
There are three non-profits that, while worthy, have had more than their share of city support based solely on the whims of elected officials supported by city paid personnel that are beholden to them.
I must note a disclaimer here that Read more
May
16
Agendas & your reporting on Monday’s 2 City Council Meetings
Filed Under City Budget, City Council Meetings | 7 Comments
(Los Alamitos, 5/16/2011) Once again we have two meetings today, and once again you get to report on both of them, whether live from your seat in the Council Chambers using your smart phone, live from your home watching on LosAlTV3 (which should carry both meetings), or after the meeting or delayed viewing. Or even after reading one of the local media reports on the meeting.
The 5 p.m. meeting continues work on the city’s 2011-2012 Operating Budget. This time staff has prepared revenue estimates and proposed departmental expenditures for the General Fund for the Fiscal Year beginning 7/1/2011, projecting a budget suplus of roughly $80,000. That’s about 15% less than the actual surplus for F. Y. 2009-2010, but over 92% less than the surplus city staff is projecting for the current Fiscal Year.
As for the 7 p.m. regular meeting, Read more
Apr
28
Helicopters, budget on Los Al Council’s agendas
Filed Under 2011 Issues, City Budget, City Council Meetings, The Base | Leave a Comment
(Los Alamtios, 4/28/11) Agendas and staff reports are now posted for both a Regular Los Alamitos City Council meeting this coming Monday, May 2, at 7 p.m. as well as a Special Meeting at 5.
The Regular Meeting (click here for full agenda with reports following) includes
- Discussion of a suggested letter to the Army expressing concerns about the proposed relocation of additional Blackhawk helicopters to the Base (details below)
- A consent item to hire Douglas Wood to temporarily manage LATV while “the City considers the future structure of LATV.” (Larry Strawther and his CSMP declined to renew or extend their agreement after the Council Read more
Jan
20
“Highlands Guy” on “Benchmarking”
Filed Under 2011 Issues, City Budget, City Council, Highlands Guy's Thursday column | Leave a Comment
(1/20/11, Los Alamitos) Coincidentally, today’s Register noted that our Anaheim Ducks’ penalty killing unit has an amazing record of successfully killing 35 of the Ducks last 37 penalties! The secret of their success?
According to Coach Randy Carlyle, “What we did really is we stole other teams’ ideas. . . . We reviewed the top three penalty teams . . . and we tried to copy and mirror what they were doing.”
Sounds like the Coach may have learned a lesson from our “Highlands Guy, ” a lesson that could benefit us all:
by “Highlands Guy:” Benchmarking: A process of comparing one’s processes and performance metrics to other similar industry bests and/or best practices from other industries.
Dimensions typically measured are quality, time, effectiveness, and cost. Results can include doing things better, faster, and cheaper. The foci can be from, among others, a financial, performance, energy, strategic, or investor perspective. Over the years I have been a part of the evaluation process in a business environment and found that, at the very least, it can give one a more realistic view of you vs the rest of the guys. It can distinguish areas of challenge as well as highlight strengths.
Perhaps the guys down in city hall could use some of this type of analysis as part of their decision making process. Look around and see what Read more